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Industrial production managers plan, direct, and coordinate the production activities required to produce the vast array of goods manufactured every year in the United States. They make sure that production meets output and quality goals while remaining within budget. Depending on the size of the manufacturing plant, industrial production managers may oversee the entire plant or just one area.
Industrial production managers devise methods to use the plant's personnel and capital resources to best meet production goals. They may determine which machines will be used, whether new machines need to be purchased, whether overtime or extra shifts are necessary, and what the sequence of production will be. They monitor the production run to make sure that it stays on schedule and correct any problems that may arise.
Part of an industrial production manager's job is to come up with ways to make the production process more efficient. Traditional factory methods, such as mass assembly lines, have given way to ?lean? production techniques, which give managers more flexibility. While in a traditional assembly line, each worker was responsible for only a small portion of the assembly, repeating that task on every product, lean production employs teams to build and assemble products in stations or cells, so rather than specializing in a specific task, workers are capable of performing all jobs within a team. Without the constraints of the traditional assembly line, industrial production managers can more easily change production levels and staffing on different product lines to minimize inventory levels and more quickly react to changing customer demands.
Industrial production managers also monitor product standards and implement quality control programs. They make sure the finished product meets a certain level of quality, and if not, they try to find out what the problem is and find a solution. While traditional quality control programs reacted only to problems that reached a certain significant level, newer management techniques and programs, such as ISO 9000, Total Quality Management (TQM), or Six Sigma, emphasize continuous quality improvement. If the problem relates to the quality of work performed in the plant, the manager may implement better training programs or reorganize the manufacturing process, often based upon the suggestions of employee teams. If the cause is substandard materials or parts from outside suppliers, the industrial production manager may work with the supplier to improve their quality.
Industrial production managers work closely with the other managers of the firm to implement the company's policies and goals. They also must work with the financial departments in order to come up with a budget and spending plan. They work the closest with the heads of sales, procurement, and logistics. Sales managers relay the client's needs and the price the client is willing to pay to the production department, which must then fulfill the order. The logistics or distribution department handles the delivery of the goods, which often needs to be coordinated with the production department. The procurement department orders the supplies that the production department needs to make its products. It is also responsible for making sure that the inventories of supplies are maintained at proper levels so production proceeds without interruption. A breakdown in communications between the production manager and the procurement department can cause slowdowns and a failure to meet production schedules. Just-in-time production techniques have reduced inventory levels, making constant communication among managers, suppliers, and procurement departments even more important.
Work environment. Most industrial production managers divide their time between production areas and their offices. While in the production area, they must follow established health and safety practices and wear the required protective clothing and equipment. The time in the office, which often is located near production areas, usually is spent meeting with subordinates or other department managers, analyzing production data, and writing and reviewing reports.
Many industrial production managers work extended hours, especially when production deadlines must be met. In 2006, about a third of all workers worked more than 50 hours a week, on average. In facilities that operate around-the-clock, managers often work late shifts and may be called at any hour to deal with emergencies. This could mean going to the plant to resolve the problem, regardless of the hour, and staying until the situation is under control. Dealing with production workers as well as superiors when working under the pressure of production deadlines or emergency situations can be stressful. Corporate restructuring has eliminated levels of management and support staff, thus shifting more responsibilities to production managers and compounding this stress.
Because of the diversity of manufacturing operations and job requirements, there is no standard preparation for this occupation. Most employers prefer to hire workers with a college degree. Experience in some part of production operations is also usually required, although some college graduates are hired directly into management positions.
Education and training. Many industrial production managers have a college degree in business administration, management, industrial technology, or industrial engineering. However, although employers may prefer candidates with a business or engineering background, some companies will hire well-rounded liberal arts graduates who are willing to spend time in a production-related job.
Some industrial production managers enter the occupation after working their way up through the ranks, starting as production workers and then advancing to supervisory positions before being selected for management. These workers already have an intimate knowledge of the production process and the firm's organization. To be selected for promotion, workers can expand their skills by obtaining a college degree, demonstrating leadership qualities, or by taking company-sponsored courses to learn the additional skills needed for management.
As production operations become more sophisticated, an increasing number of employers look for candidates with graduate degrees in industrial management or business administration, particularly for positions at larger plants where managers have more oversight responsibilities. Combined with an undergraduate degree in engineering, either of these graduate degrees is considered particularly good preparation. Managers who do not have graduate degrees often take courses in decision sciences, which provide them with techniques and statistical formulas that can be used to maximize efficiency and improve quality. Those who enter the field directly from college or graduate school often are unfamiliar with the firm's production process. As a result, they may spend their first few months in the company's training program. These programs familiarize trainees with the production process, company policies, and the requirements of the job. In larger companies, they also may include assignments to other departments, such as purchasing and accounting. A number of companies hire college graduates as first-line supervisors and later promote them to management positions.
Other qualifications. Companies are placing greater importance on a candidate's interpersonal skills. Because the job requires the ability to compromise, persuade, and negotiate, successful production managers must be well-rounded and have excellent communication skills. Strong computer skills are also essential.
Industrial production managers must continually keep informed of new production technologies and management practices. Many belong to professional organizations and attend trade shows or industry conferences where new equipment is displayed and new production methods and technologies discussed.
Certification and advancement. Some industrial production managers earn certifications that show their competency in various quality and management systems. Although certification is not required for industrial production manager jobs, it may improve job prospects.
One credential, Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM), is offered by the Association for Operations Management and requires passing a series of exams that cover supply chain management, resource planning, scheduling, production operations, and strategic planning. Certification holders must complete a set number of professional development activities every 3 years to maintain their certification.
The American Society for Quality offers the Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence (CMQ/OE) credential. This certification is open to managers who pass an exam and who have at least 10 years of experience or education, 5 of which must be in a decision-making position. It is intended for managers who lead process improvement initiatives. To maintain certification, workers must complete a set number of professional development units every 3 years.
Industrial production managers with a proven record of superior performance may advance to plant manager or vice president for manufacturing. Others transfer to jobs with more responsibilities at larger firms. Opportunities also exist for managers to become consultants. (For more information, see the statement on management analysts elsewhere in the Handbook.)
Industrial production managers held about 157,000 jobs in 2006. About 4 out of 5 are employed in manufacturing industries, including the fabricated metal product, transportation equipment, and computer and electronic product manufacturing sectors. Production managers work in all parts of the country, but jobs are most plentiful in areas where manufacturing is concentrated.
Employment of industrial production managers is expected to decline. Applicants with experience in production occupations along with a college degree in industrial engineering, management, or a related field will enjoy the best job prospects.
Employment change. Employment of industrial production managers is expected to decline moderately by 6 percent over the 2006-2016 decade, mirroring the overall decline in manufacturing employment. Some declines will result from manufacturing plants moving abroad, but domestic production in manufacturing is expected to continue to increase. However, as plants produce more goods with fewer people, there will be less need for industrial production managers.
Efforts to increase efficiency at the management level have led companies to ask production managers to assume more responsibilities, particularly as computers allow managers to more easily coordinate scheduling, planning, and communication among departments. In addition, more emphasis on quality in the production process has redistributed some of the production manager's oversight responsibilities to supervisors and workers on the production line. However, most of the decision making work of production managers cannot be automated, which will limit the declines in employment.
Job prospects. Despite employment declines, a number of jobs are expected to open due to the need to replace workers who retire or transfer to other occupations. Applicants with experience in production occupations along with a college degree in industrial engineering, management, or business administration, and particularly those with an undergraduate engineering degree and a master's degree in business administration or industrial management, will enjoy the best job prospects. Employers also are likely to seek candidates who have excellent communication skills, related work experience, and who are personable, flexible, and eager to enhance their knowledge and skills through ongoing training.
Industrial production managers
NOTE: Data in this table are rounded. See the discussion of the employment projections table in the Handbook introductory chapter on Occupational Information Included in the Handbook.
Median annual earnings for industrial production managers were $77,670 in May 2006. The middle 50 percent earned between $59,650 and $100,810. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $47,230, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $130,680. Median annual earnings in the manufacturing industries employing the largest numbers of industrial production managers were:
Industrial production managers oversee production staff and equipment, ensure that production goals and quality standards are being met, and implement company policies. Other managerial occupations with similar responsibilities are general and operations managers, construction managers, and sales managers. Occupations requiring comparable training and problem-solving skills are engineers, management analysts, and operations research analysts.
General information on careers in industrial production management is available from local manufacturers and schools with programs in industrial management.
For more information on careers in production management and information on the CPIM certification, contact:
For more information on quality management and the CMQ/OE certification, contact:
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook
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ACGME Core Competencies
Patient care
SIU Neurosurgery residents are expected to gather data; order diagnostic tests; interpret data; make decisions, perform procedures; manage patient therapies; and to work with others to provide the patient-focused care.
- These skills are developed in didactic lectures sessions, and through participation on the Neurosurgical patient care services at the SIU School of Medicine. The curriculum for this training is outlined in the Society of Neurological Surgeons Matrix curriculum. This curriculum is incorporated into the SIU Neurosurgery Residency Training Program.
- SIU Neurosurgery Residents will be expected to demonstrate a progression in obtaining these clinical skills by achieving the milestones as outlined in the Society of Neurological Surgeons Milestones Project. Achievement of these milestones is evaluated by the Neurosurgery Faculty and also by self-evaluation and evaluations from peers, nurses, mid-level providers and patients.
Medical knowledge
SIU Neurosurgery Residents are expected to develop a fund of knowledge and to make use of knowledge to solve medical problems.
- This knowledge is to be developed through didactic lecture series, reading of key textbooks and articles, and active participation in clinical situations and laboratory dissections and simulation including computer generated virtual reality.
- This knowledge is assessed and documented by the Neurosurgery Faculty through various assessment tools. The residents participate in the Self-Assessment in Neurological Surgery (SANS) program. SANS: Lifelong Learning is a sophisticated online learning tool published by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) for residents and practicing neurosurgeons, and also endorsed by the ABNS for the lifelong learning component of MOC (thus it truly represents a lifelong training and practice continuous improvement tool). The CNS renews 25% of the content each year. Our residents have a free account provided by our program and must complete a full 240 question cycle every 2 years starting with the PGY-2 year. In addition to giving overall first pass answer scores and subset scores in each area, to self-identify knowledge gaps, each question/answer also has a peer-reviewed critique for instruction and additional live web-based learning links for further self-directed study. SANS includes BOTH clinical and non-clinical competency related material. SANS participation/completion is tracked in the residents portfolio – competencies tracking form. Faculty members are also encouraged to participate in the SANS program. As an incentive for good performance for both the faculty and the residents, any resident who scores higher than the average score of the faculty is entitled to a cash award from the faculty.
- Residents knowledge is also assessed through the American Board of Neurological Surgery Part I Written Exam. Each resident is expected to take this exam for practice or credit each year until the exam is passed. Every resident is expected to pass this exam before they can enter the final year as Chief Resident.
Practice-based learning and improvement
SIU Neurosurgery Residents are expected to analyze practice performance and carry out needed improvements; locate and apply scientific evidence to the care of patients; critically appraise the scientific literature; use the computer to support learning and patient care; and facilitate the learning of other health care professionals.
- Each resident in the PGY3 year will be expected to participate in a SIU Human Investigations Program. The course is a faculty driven and an online program with full interactive projects and activities, grading, face to face attendance at lectures and small group activities. The course covers informatics, including the location of existing medical evidence, use of information technology to compile, extend and evaluate evidence including meta-analysis, as well as evidence based medicine, including appraising the quality and level of clinical data, assimilating evidence from scientific studies, and applying information to patient care. As part of the course, each resident is expected to design a clinical trial or study that can be carried out in a reasonable amount of time.
- Residents are expected to help track outcomes by contributing to the SIU Neurosurgery Outcome Registry/Database. This prospective registry can be used for either retrospective analysis of outcomes or prospective analysis of outcomes for various clinical questions. This database combines the operative experience in Neurosurgery for both St. John's Hospital and the Memorial Medical Center. It currently has 3062 patients with 3624 admissions and 3703 surgical procedures, covering the period from January 1, 2009 to the present. This registry is separate and parallel to the resident operative logs.
- The SIU competencies curriculum requires each resident to complete a quality improvement project prior to graduation from the Program. Projects are expected to be directly related to clinical improvement (for example the creation of new care pathways and templates in electronic medical records for order sets for standard neurosurgical procedures/admissions) to indirect patient care improvement through improvements to the educational environment.
- As part of this training, the residents are expected to participate in the GME and Quality Improvement Training Series.
- Residents are expected to achieve the general milestones for Practice-based learning and improvement outlined in the paper by Nasca TJ, Philibert I, Brigham T, Flynn TC. The Next GME Accreditation System – rationale and benefits. NEJM 2012 Feb 22 (Epub ahead of print). They are also expected to achieve the Neurosurgery Milestones recently developed by the Society of Neurological Surgeons.
- PGY1 residents will have explicit communications skills exercises, which give direct, mentored experience with feedback, based on initial didactic instruction as part of the residency conference curriculum. All residents in all years are evaluated using the Clinical Assessment and Management Exam – Outpatient (CAMEO) evaluation tool developed at SIU. This experience is tracked in the clinical and non-clinical competencies portion of the resident portfolio.
- Residents are expected to teach patients and families in the hospital during clinical interactions, present various conferences to faculty and peers (M&M, Neuro-Oncology, Spine conferences, various curriculum conference topics such as board review), teach medical students, and teach and supervise extern rotators visiting our neurosurgical service.
- Communications with families, nurses and peers are evaluated every 3 months with secure, online 360 degree evaluations (New Innovations) and communications/teaching (including presentations) abilities are evaluated by the faculty every 3 months in rotation evaluations (New Innovations). The Program Director reviews all teaching and communication feedback (formal and ad hoc) at each 3-monthly performance evaluation.
- The residents will be expected to be a tutor for bi-weekly two-hour small group problem-based learning (PBL) sessions for 2nd year medical students for a quarter in their PGY-3 year. Each session is composed of 8-10 students where students are presented with a patient scenario and the students are expected to investigate and discuss all aspects of the patient's problem. The effectiveness of the tutors is a key element in the operation of problem-based learning. A tutor works with a group of six students over the course of a unit, guiding students through the process of learning. Tutors also evaluate and provide feedback to students.
- Education skills are enhanced by periodic "Resident as Teacher" sessions that are presented by Faculty and Guest Speakers and are presented by the SIU School of Medicine. Attendance will be mandatory for all residents in Neurosurgery at the SIU School of Medicine.
- In addition, and most importantly, the senior and Chief residents are expected to be the immediate supervisors and mentors for visiting (and internal) 3rd and 4th year medical students rotating on our service. Our residents are also expected to be intimately involved in the resident recruitment process and faculty-resident selection meetings for the rank list each year. The Chief residents expected to draft all medical student rotation evaluations, which are edited and finalized in conjunction with the Program Director, also giving them some direct feedback in constructive, compliant and respectful evaluations.
Interpersonal and communication skills
SIU Neurosurgery Residents are expected to develop a therapeutic relationship with patients and their families; use verbal and non-verbal skills to communicate effectively with patients and their families; and work effectively as a team member or leaders.
- SIU has two educational centers which provide training for residents both across the specialties and in specialty-specific conferences. First, there is the Southern and Central Illinois Advisory Group for Ethics (SAGE) which, in association with the Clinical Ethics Center (CEC) at Memorial Medical Center provides a series of training sessions on effective communication with patients and families across a broad range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Second, there is the SIU School of Medicine Office of Diversity, Multicultural and Minority Affairs which provides training at all levels in these areas as well. These training activities are incorporated into the Neurosurgery Resident Didactic Conference series and the Department of Surgery Lecture Series.
- Most activities in SIU Neurosurgery are accomplished in the setting of some sort of team. For example, all surgeries for movement disorders require the participation of a team of health care providers including faculty, residents, nurses, mid-level providers, neuropsychologists and social work professionals from Neurosurgery, Neurology, and Psychiatry. Residents are expected to actively participate in this team at all levels of interaction, including conferences where specific care plans for patients are discussed. Communication is within patient care conferences, by electronic medical records and personal communication. These communications occur in the clinic, in the hospital, in the operating room and in the conference room. The ultimate responsibility for decisions is always between the patient (and the patient's family) and the appropriate attending physician.
- Other, similar team activities occur with the Epilepsy Team, Neurovascular team, Neuro-Oncology Team, etc.
- Residents are trained in electronic medical record (EMR) use at both hospitals and in the clinics before the start of the PGY-1 year. Both hospitals have separate distinct EMR systems and both will be paperless by 2013. The SIU Clinics and the Springfield Clinic also have comprehensive EMR systems and are both paperless at the present time.
- Both hospitals and both clinics have all diagnostic images on a PACS system. Both hospitals have extensive communication networks with all hospitals within a 200 mile radius of Springfield where images can be transported electronically between patient care centers for immediate review by the neurosurgery faculty and residents.
- Both hospitals and both clinics will track the completion of all major clinical reports, such as operative notes, order signatures, and other EMR components, with direct report in real time of deficiencies to the Program Director. Excessive delinquency or other deficiencies will result in warnings and then (rarely) residents will be removed from clinical duties until the deficiencies can be corrected. All records are timed and legible by definition as part of each EMR system. Failure to correct dictation errors/uninterpretability as requested automatically within the system is also tracked and remediated.
SIU Neurosurgery Residents are expected to demonstrate integrity and honesty; accept responsibility; act in the best interest of the patient; and demonstrate sensitivity to patients' ethnicity, age and disabilities.
- Every month, one of the weekly Neurosurgery conferences will focus on an "interesting case" where management decisions are complicated by ethical or moral dilemma(s). These cases are chosen and presented by the residents and will include an extensive discussion of the ethical and moral issues involved. The faculty member(s) associated with each case will also discuss these issues. Input and interaction to and from the resident with the Clinical Ethics team from the involved hospital is greatly encouraged and will also be discussed in these presentations.
- The Neurosurgery conference curriculum addresses various topics relevant to professionalism (risk management, appropriate billing and coding, mock oral boards, etc). Professionalism and mentored supervision are explicit topics at the inception of training as part of the Society of Neurological Surgeons PGY-1 Boot Camp Courses, which all SIU PGY1 Neurosurgery Residents are required to attend. It is also covered by SIU core curriculum for PGY-1 residents in the Department of Surgery.
- Additionally, throughout residency, the residents are required to perform and are evaluated on numerous activities relevant to professionalism, including conference and M&M presentations, the monthly ethics case presentations, leadership service during Chief residency, etc. Professionalism is explicitly evaluated by the faculty for each resident every 6 months as part of the competency-based online secure summative evaluations, and reviewed by the Program Director with the resident privately at 6 monthly performance evaluations. Other components of the residency training also address issues of professionalism, for example proper handling of data and attribution in research and medical publishing, covered in the Human Investigations Program and in individual publishing projects of the clinical and basic science faculty with residents.
- Professional development is additionally supported by attendance by all SIU Neurosurgery residents at the Society of Neurological Surgeons Research and Update in Neurosurgery and Neuroscience (RUNN) course in Woods Hole, during the PGY3 year.
- The faculty of SIU is expected to attend an AANS Coding and Reimbursement course in the first year as a new faculty member and at least every four years after that. Professionalism and participation in local and antional organizations is encouraged.
- Violations of SIU Neurosurgery and Department of Surgery policies relevant to professionalism, including comportment, presentation, accurate and compliant duty hours, timely medical record and residency record keeping, attendance, competencies curriculum completion, etc, are monitored by the Program Director and Coordinator. Professional behavior in the clinical setting is monitored by faculty, mid-levels, nurses and peers using New Innovations online evaluations. Positive and negative feedback by patients and others, patient/family surveys, patient/family letters, clinical risk system reports, etc, is monitored by the Program Director. Poor performance in professionalism is discussed with the resident by the Program Director at 6 monthly performance evaluations or ad hoc as needed between evaluations. Repeat or serious transgressions/deficiencies are discussed by the residency advisory committee and a written remediation plan required, generally in consultation with and with the support of specialists available to SIU GME (for professionalism and communications skills, counseling, test taking skills, etc.). The Program Director monitors all formal remediation or probation plans with reports to the RAC, and as needed the DIO. The Program complies with all SIU GME and SIU School of Medicine institutional policies with regards to remediation, probation, and disciplinary action or termination.
- Violations of policies relevant to professionalism by faculty are reported to the relevant division.
- Some issues may be immediately reviewed with an individual faculty member by the relevant Division Head and/or the Department Chair, or overall performance regarding professionalism reviewed at annual performance evaluations. Professionalism in resident teaching is tracked in resident confidential (New Innovations) teaching evaluations for each faculty member, and this data reviewed by the Program Director at the Residency Advisory Committee meeting each six months and also included as relevant in summative evaluations of faculty teaching that are formulated by the Program Director and used by the Chair in annual faculty performance evaluations.
Systems-based practice
SIU Neurosurgery Residents are expected to demonstrate awareness of interdependencies in the health care system that affect quality of care; provide cost-effective care; advocate for quality patient care; and work with hospital management and interdisciplinary teams to improve patient care.
- The SIU competencies curriculum requires each resident to complete a quality improvement project prior to graduation from the Program. These projects can include an analysis of health care systems that can adversely affect patient outcomes, including problematic devices, architecture, design and processes. Training in analysis of adverse events through root-cause analysis is stressed in didactic teaching and whenever possible in morbidity and mortality discussions.
- Residents will also be required to participate in hospital or medical school committees that review issues of health care value, weighing cost-containment verses patient health outcome measures. Residents are expected to help track outcomes by contributing to the SIU Neurosurgery Outcome Registry/Database.
- As part of this training, the residents are expected to participate in the GME and Quality Improvement Training Series.
- Residents are expected to achieve the general milestones for Systems-based practice outlined in the paper by Nasca TJ, Philibert I, Brigham T, Flynn TC. The Next GME Accreditation System – rationale and benefits. NEJM 2012 Feb 22 (Epub ahead of print) and also the specific milestones for systems-based practice outlined by the Society of Neurological Surgeons Milestones Project.
- Residents will be required to participate in hospital or medical school committees that review issues of health care value, weighing cost-containment verses patient health outcome measures. Residents are expected to help track outcomes by contributing to the SIU Neurosurgery Outcome Registry/Database and use these outcomes as well as outcome measures tracked by the hospitals and other organizations that track health care quality measures.

subset: commoncrawl


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Decoding Obama's comments on war in Afghanistan: What did he really mean?
| Washington
A year after announcing 30,000 additional troops for the US-led fight in Afghanistan, President Obama offered a mixed picture of "fragile" progress and of more difficult days ahead in his annual review of the war.
Yet compared with a year ago – when Mr. Obama set the stage for the beginning of a troop withdrawal in summer 2011 – the president's message on Thursday was more focused on the conditions that will determine the pace of a drawdown over the next four years.
The shift in message is in part designed to tell the central actors in the war – the Taliban, the governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the Afghan population – that the US and its partners are not pulling out any time soon, some policy analysts say. The review also reflects the commitment the US and NATO members made earlier this month to a transfer of combat responsibilities to Afghan security forces by December of 2014.
IN PICTURES: Winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan
Moving the goal posts
"The administration has rather subtly moved the goal posts from 2011 to 2014, something it began doing about six months ago," says James Dobbins, a longtime US diplomat and Afghanistan expert now at the Rand Corp. in Arlington, Va. While 2011 had "some utility, particularly in domestic politics," Ambassador Dobbins adds that the administration quickly realized the date also had some costs.
"It fed the impression in the region that the US could simply be waited out," he says, "and that our support of the government in Afghanistan had a time limit on it."
The message of "fragile but reversible progress" also signals to Americans less supportive of the war than ever that the next six months will be critical to determining the magnitude – or mere symbolism – of the drawdown to begin in July 2011.
The early months of the year, when the Taliban's traditionally return to offensive mode, will offer a hint of how "fragile" the security progress is, military experts say, and thus of what kind of drawdown the US can safely begin in July.
Message to Pakistan
Aside from the Afghan security conditions, the review's assessment of "fragile but reversible" progress also applies to the engagement of the Pakistani government in tackling of safe havens from which fighters in Afghanistan operate.
Obama referred to "regional cooperation" – referring primarily to Pakistan – as one of the key pillars of the administration's Afghanistan strategy.
The president said the US has communicated a strong message to Pakistan that "the safe havens must be dealt with." But privately, US intelligent officials are more categorical: Additional progress in Afghanistan will be almost impossible unless Pakistan does more, and soon, about the insurgents that cross from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
"Pakistan, as always, remains the hardest part of this problem," says Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a former CIA South Asia specialist who co-chaired Obama's first Afghanistan-Pakistan review.
Mr. Riedel says the new strategic dialogue the US has established with Pakistan is a step in the right direction. But he adds that the "jihadist Frankenstein" that Pakistani officials helped create for their own purposes will not be easily shut down.
Obama was his most positive in describing what he called the "significant progress" that has been made in the "core" American goal of "disrupting, dismantling, and defeating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan." Compared with nine years ago, when the senior Al Qaeda leadership fled Afghanistan, Obama said the senior leaders are "hunkered down" and are finding it harder to recruit, to travel, to train, and to "plot and launch attacks."
Riedel says the Al Qaeda leadership has felt significant impact from US drone attacks, and he offers the example of Osama bin Laden's top assistant, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Noting that the number of anti-American "diatribes" issued by the Al Qaeda message man has dropped from one every other week to four so far this year, Riedel says, "His operational tempo has been disrupted."
But by defining the war as at its "core" a battle with Al Qaeda, Obama is also relegating to secondary status the counterinsurgency goal of winning Afghan "hearts and minds" through better protection of civilians and improved delivery of basic services.
Whither nation-building?
In his White House statement, Obama underscored the core goal in Afghanistan – defeating Al Qaeda – by defining what it is not. "It's not nation-building, because it is Afghans who must build their nation."
Just a few minutes later, however, speaking from the same podium about the same review, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton emphasized the civilian component of the international effort in Afghanistan. Noting that the US alone has more than 1,000 civilian diplomats and specialists in Afghanistan, Secretary Clinton said that the "rebuilding of Afghanistan is an international commitment."
So which is it? Dobbins says nation-building may have a bad name – thus Obama's rejection of it – but he adds that the US will never be able to safely depart unless Afghans are able to run their country themselves.
"As a practical matter, we have to build indigenous capacity if we don't want to stay there forever," Dobbins says. "Call that work whatever you want … but a rose is a rose."


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Meet TY, a fearless Tasmanian tiger in the wild and untamed Australian wilderness. Skilled in the art of boomerang combat, TY not only survives the dangerous Australian Outback, he runs, jumps, swims, and glides through it. As TY, you'll encounter more than 50 wild characters based on real-life indigenous animals of Australia. Not all of them are nice--so give your enemies a taste of eight different boomerangs. When you're not busy in combat, you'll solve puzzles, collect items, and participate in races.
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What You Need:
- Salt Dough: Mix 2 Cups All-Purpose Flour, 1 Cup Salt, and 3/4 to 1 Cup of Water
- Jute or Heavy Twine
- Toothpicks
- Take a chunk of the dough and roll it into a ball. Onto a lightly floured surface (to prevent sticking), use hands to flatten ball.
- Once you have your circle of dough, use a toothpick to press marks into the dough where the arms of the starfish will be (or are they legs?????)
- Remove dough between markings and use hands to round and shape the starfish form.
- Use toothpick to make long indentation in center of each leg and to poke small holes up and down arms of starfish.
- Poke hole in top of starfish (we used the non-pointy end of a ball point pen).
- Let dry, either by allowing to air dry, or by baking in a 200 degree oven for several hours until hardened.
- Once dried and cooled, apply coat of acrylic sealant.
- Tie small loop through hole at top of starfish with jute so the stafish will hang flat when suspended.
- String starfish on strand of jute to make garland.


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Theatre Review: The Good Mother
The Good Mother
Written by Francine Volpe
Directed by Scott Elliot
At Theater Row Theaters
The New Group at Theatre Row,
410 West 42nd Street,
New York. NY 10036
The skeleton of a good play resides somewhere in Francine Volpe's story of a struggling single mother. Some of the classic ingredients of a good drama are here: internal and external conflicts, buried secrets revealed, a pivotal event that triggers a transformation. The trouble with Volpe's script, and with Scott Elliot's direction, is that there are so many distracting elements and static beats that the thrust of what might be a compelling story is obscured.
The play takes place in a modest wood paneled living room, where Larissa (Gretchen Mol) is anxiously readying herself to reenter the dating world. After spending the last four years raising her autistic daughter, Allyson and building her accounting business, Larssia has had little time for fun. Like any parent, she's entitled to a night off, so long as the child is in good hands. But her choice of babysitters turns out to be disastrous. Goth-boy Angus (Eric Nelsen), has no experience with special-needs kids, and is unlikely to know how to handle the child's frequent outbursts. Nevertheless, off Larissa goes, returning a few hours later with Jonathan (Darren Goldstein), a burly truck driver she has picked up in a bar. Angus maintains that everything went okay, but Larissa notices something odd in her daughter's behavior. She fears Angus has done something "inappropriate," although what that might mean is never specified. Allyson can't speak, so Larissa takes her to a specialist who can interpret her signals.
The incident triggers a confrontation with Angus's dad Joel (Mark Blum), a therapist with whom Larissa has a lengthy history. As a troubled teen, she and a tight group of peers were mentored by Joel. Now Joel is under investigation. It appears that he has crossed professional boundaries in his relationships with his young wards. The last thing he needs is for his son to be dragged into a scandal as well. Thus Larissa and Joel, who formerly shared a (possibly unethical) bond in the past, now find themselves on opposite sides. Larissa's case looks weak. Would a good mother have brought a stranger home for sex while her daughter lay unattended in the nursery? To make matters worse, Angus, having misinterpreted Larissa's rhetoric, accuses her of making a pass at him. As tensions rise in the town, Larissa's business dries up and someone throws a brick through her window. Jonathan offers to help, as does Buddy (Alfredo Narciso), a policeman who was once also a part of Joel's wayward-teen group. Ultimately though, Larissa must determine for herself how best to keep herself and her child out of trouble—if she can.
Volpe has a sensitive ear for the cadences of everyday speech and the priorities of working- class Americans. She is less skilled at dramatic structure and pacing. Larissa remains oddly passive throughout much of the play and it's unclear what she is fighting for. Her best-written exchange occurs with the troubled Angus, who – with some justification – sees her questioning of him as manipulative and creepy. The other men don't push back at Larissa enough, and most of what they talk about occurs offstage or in the past tense. Larissa doesn't seem all that interested in Jonathan, and yet he continues to take up her time. More crucially, we never find out whether Allyson has been abused or even what Larissa believes may have happened. The implication is that the "good mother" has used her daughter as a prop to lure Joel back into her life. Yet why she'd want to do that isn't adequately explained in their one scene together. The rhythm of the evening is not helped by Elliot's curiously tame staging. Blum, for example is for some reason directed to sit slumped over and stare at the floor: a strange choice for a crucial scene in which Joel beseeches Larissa to back off from his family. With virtually no movement or eye contact, Mol has little to react to. The scene doesn't really take off until Joel, sober for years, reaches for a bottle of whisky — at which point the lights begin to fade. Likewise, Larissa's early scenes with Jonathan are so tentative that the actors, rather than the characters, begin to look awkward.
It's unfortunate that the actors aren't better served by the material and the production. Mol, known for her glamorous movie roles, turns out to be a capable stage actress and brings a refreshing honesty to the part. The all-male supporting cast gives her as much support as possible, despite the fact that all the characters, apart from Angus, approach Larissa as if they were walking on eggs. The New Group, for whom Elliot also serves as artistic director, has a commendable history of giving up-and-coming playwrights a shot. What they don't seem to have, though, is a structured workshop system for the development of new plays. The Good Mother is one of several recent New Group productions whose cast is committed and whose script has a ring of truth, but which is in need of a dramaturgical makeover.
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In a vote in the early Wednesday morning hours, the Senate approved the final version of the first overhaul of the US tax code in more than 30 years, handing President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans their most significant legislative victory of 2017.
The bill passed along party lines, 51-48 with the final result announced by Vice President Mike Pence who presided over the vote. Sen. Jeff Flake, the last undeclared Republican, voted yes.
The House passed the bill earlier Tuesday, but technical changes were made to it in the Senate, and the bill will go back to the House on Wednesday for a revote, where it is expected to pass again. It will then head to the President's desk for his signature before the Christmas holiday, making good on the Republican Party's promise to enact tax relief by the end of the year.
At around midnight, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made his final pitch to his colleagues to vote against the tax bill. It was the same kind of impassioned speech Democrats made all evening, but Schumer looked directly at his colleagues and said that this is "some bill for the middle class," noting the heftiest provisions will help corporations.
As the vote unfolded, Sen. Tim Scott, a key negotiator in the tax bill and someone who was tapped to lead part of the effort, went up to Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch and Hatch put his arm around them. On the floor, senators cheered when the bill was passed.
Protesters also could be heard during the final vote Wednesday morning. A group of onlookers above the Senate floor in the chamber begin yelling "kill the bill, don't kill us" before they were escorted out by law enforcement shortly before the start of the final vote.
House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke earlier from the floor of the House in advance of their first vote and said that this was a "generational defining moment."
"This is without question the single most important thing we can do to once again make America the best place to do business," the Wisconsin Republican said.
Protesters were repeatedly removed from both chambers throughout the day.
Now, Republicans are just hours away from officially collecting their first major legislative win this year, one that not only delivers on a campaign promise to overhaul the US tax system, but also nets another GOP pledge to repeal at least part of the Affordable Care Act in ending the penalty tied to Obamacare's mandate to have health insurance.
But the victory is also at least in part a gamble Republicans are making ahead of next year's midterm elections, as the party will vote for the legislation amid tough poll numbers for what it's proposing to do as well as critical analyses that say the plan will add billions to the national debt and eventually raise taxes on some key groups.
But in the end, no bad analysis, no bad poll, no bad headline has dissuaded Republicans from moving forward on this bill. Nothing at this point is going to change that.
The policy
CNN has covered what's in the final bill extensively, but here are just a few of the highlights: The plan — which critics say is heavily weighted to ease the tax burden of businesses rather than the middle class — drops the corporate tax rate down from 35% to 21%, repeals the corporate alternative minimum tax, nearly doubles the standard deduction for individuals and restructures the way pass-through businesses are taxed. The bill keeps seven personal income tax brackets, and lowers that tax rates for most brackets, including dropping the top rate to 37% from 39.6%.
For more on what exactly is in the bill's policy, check out CNN Money's in-depth coverage since the final bill's release last Friday.
The final analyses of the GOP House-Senate conference report are also starting to come in. Here's a quick rundown:
Joint Committee on Taxation: The JCT found that all income groups will, on average, see a tax cut in 2019, though the projections worsen over time. In 2019, all taxpayers would see an 8% tax cut. In total, about 10 percent of the $1.5 trillion tax cut would go directly into middle households. Those making more than $500,000 would receive approximately 12 percent of the total tax cut. The JCT, however, found that by 2027 taxpayers earning up to $75,000 would receive a tax increase — this would stem from the sunsetting individual rate cuts in the final GOP bill, along with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate.
Tax Foundation: The bill will increase the debt by $448 billion over the next 10 years when scored on a dynamic basis (accounting for growth provisions in the bill.) This is a more optimistic view of things than other analyses — the Tax Foundation is considered more aggressive with its assumptions for economic growth than other entities — yet the legislation still clearly adds to the debt over 10 years, contrary to some Republican promises.
The analysis also showed the bill would boost gross domestic product by 1.7% on a long-term basis.
Tax Policy Center: The Tax Policy Center found that the final bill would reduce taxes on average for all income groups in 2018, with higher income houses receiving the largest average tax cuts per percentage of after-tax income. The largest cuts would go to taxpayers in the 95th to 99th percentiles of income. The TPC projected that individual taxes would be reduced on average by $1,600 in 2018, but by 2027 more than half of households would face an average tax increase of $180.
Why Susan Collins is a yes
As CNN has previously reported, Collins asked for specific things in the Senate tax bill:
- An expansion of the medical expense deduction
- The expansion of the State and Local Tax deduction
- The re-instatement of catch-up contributions for public employees
Her vote was contingent on those things, plus future guarantees on two health care items — the bill from Sens. Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray that includes funding for Obamacare's cost-sharing reduction subsidies and a separate bill with Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson that would create a reinsurance fund.
She got the tax provisions, and she got a guarantee from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the future health care proposal. She also got a guarantee from McConnell and Ryan that pay-as-you go automatic cuts to programs like Medicare would be waived before they would be triggered by the deficit-heavy bill.
Same goes for this time around. All three of the Collins asks were included in the final legislation (as well as some other provisions she'd been working on during the process). McConnell's guarantees on the other provisions stand — and several aides have made clear McConnell intends to follow through on his promises in the year-end spending bill.
So she was a "yes." And not a tepid one. She gave a lengthy floor speech expounding on what she saw as the virtues of the tax bill. One that included this:
"The right question to ask is, 'Does this tax cut make the American people better off?' And the answer to that question is yes," she said.
Will McConnell deliver on the other issues? It's a great question — one people have been trying to figure out for a few weeks now. House Republicans are deeply opposed to the health care legislation and House Democrats have already said they have no intention of helping to waive the "paygo" trigger.
For Collins (and more importantly, McConnell) there's work to be done, but for now, the promise was enough.
About McConnell's promise: What McConnell promised Collins isn't a sure thing — again, House Republicans are deeply opposed to the health care provisions and Democrats, according to several people involved in the year-end spending negotiations, have little appetite to help the Republican leader finalize a deal in the midst of a partisan tax overhaul push.
But the dynamic at play here is a very important one — McConnell is about to have his majority cut down by one senator. That makes Collins in extremely valuable player in whatever happens in 2018. Alienating her — and failing to deliver on something that she has staked her vote on — is a seriously bad play.
And McConnell knows this, according to aides. But more importantly, there's the long game in general. McConnell made a big show of this promise to Collins — even engaging in a colloquy on the floor cementing the deal. Now, Democrats have chuckled at this, but for McConnell, keeping a promise to someone in his conference, particularly on something as high stakes as this, carries major weight in the future, when, say, he has to ask another senator to take a very, very tough vote in exchange for something in the future.
Again, nothing's is assured. But this is precisely why McConnell has made clear he wants to address what Collins was promised in the year-end spending bill. He is keenly aware the stakes are very high, both in the near term and long term, for his time leading the GOP conference.


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The time may pass, but the pain is always there.
September 11, whose significance drastically changed 16 years ago, is once again upon us. Communities across Long Island have had their share of loss amid the thousands who perished that day—377 residents to be exact. Municipalities have done an exemplary job honoring those who were taken on that horrific date.
These are appropriately solemn scenes attended by local officials, residents and members of the local fire department as well as friends and families of those we lost. And while this is an event that should never be forgotten, the unity that showed right after it happened is as equally absent as the Twin Towers themselves.
Partisanship is what steers the ship that is our country nowadays and while finger-pointing is what passes for action, I can't help but think of Abraham Lincoln's quote, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," as being one of the more scarily prophetic items from the past that's looming over what is our present-day national political scene.
Make no mistake, that the somber and sad emotion wrapped up in 9/11 have their root in everything that is so appalling with what happened back in 2001. At press time, people that call Houston and the surrounding area of Texas are, and will, continue to cope with the wake of devastation left by Hurricane Harvey. Not unlike those victims of Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, the unity of humanitarianism and compassion is what's needed in these kinds of circumstances. So it goes with memorializing the events of 9/11. But given the political climate, that's seemed to calcify in every subsequent year, where being right is more important than working together for the country's benefit, it doesn't make getting through the day any easier.
—Dave Gil de Rubio
Source: http://hicksvillenews.com/2017/09/06/editorial-unity-shouldnt-be-a-casualty/


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BERLIN (REUTERS) - Diplomats from Europe, China and Russia are discussing a new accord to offer Iran financial aid to curb its ballistic missile development and meddling in the region, in the hope of salvaging its 2015 nuclear deal, a German newspaper reported on Sunday (May 20).
The officials will meet in Vienna in the coming week under the leadership of senior European Union diplomat Helga Schmid to discuss next steps after the May 8 decision by US President Donald Trump to pull out of a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper said, citing senior EU sources.
Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China would participate in the meeting, but the United States would not, it said. It was not immediately clear if Iran - which has resisted calls to curb its ballistic missile programme in the past - would take part.
Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of most Western sanctions. One of the main complaints of the Trump administration was that the accord did not cover Iran's missile programme or its support for armed groups in the Middle East which the West considers terrorists.
Concluding a new agreement that would maintain the nuclear provisions and curb ballistic missile development efforts and Teheran's activities in the region could help convince Mr Trump to lift sanctions against Iran, the newspaper said.
"We have to get away from the name 'Vienna nuclear agreement' and add in a few additional elements. Only that will convince President Trump to agree and lift sanctions again," the paper quoted a senior EU diplomat as saying.
No immediate comment was available from the German foreign ministry.
The EU's energy chief sought to reassure Iran on Saturday that the 28-member bloc remained committed to salvaging the nuclear deal, and strengthening trade with Teheran.
Officials from the EU, Germany and other countries that remain committed to the deal have said it would disastrous if EU efforts fail to preserve it.
Iran has struggled to achieve financial benefits from the deal, partly because remaining unilateral US sanctions over its missile programme deterred major Western investors from doing business with Teheran.
The officials are looking for a new approach given an understanding that it would be difficult for European firms to work around new US sanctions, the newspaper reported.
It said the new deal could include billions of dollars of financial aid for Iran, in line with an EU deal that provided billions in aid to Turkey for taking in millions of migrants and closing its borders, which helped end a 2015 migrant crisis.
Iran and European powers have made a good start in talks over how to salvage the 2015 deal but much depends on what happens in the next few weeks, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said last week.


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"Obviously, fighting is a risky and dangerous sport, and getting into a cage with another guy takes a lot of guts, but at the end of the day, these people are here to watch a fight." - John Cholish
It is said a man can be known by the company he keeps.
This timeless proverb could not be more applicable for both UFC lightweight John Cholish and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt John Danaher. In the former's Octagon debut last December, fight fans instantly knew almost all they would ever need to when the latter was introduced as Cholish's head coach. This immediate recognition or near a priori understanding of Cholish because of Danaher's presence can similarly be likened to Danaher's indelible integrity from his work with and subsequent praise from Renzo Gracie, Roger Gracie, Matt Serra, Chris Weidman, Greg Jackson, UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, and many others.
As Danaher has never been an animal of competition, his legend as a teacher will forever be linked to the overwhelming success of his students, including the 8-1 Cholish.
"John was one of the first guys I met at Renzo Gracie's Academy in 2006," tells Cholish. "Georges St-Pierre is such a highly respected fighter and to have a guy like that speak so highly of John speaks for itself. He's a black belt and I think he is one of the best teachers of the overall game of jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts. One of the things that I think makes him so great is he is still a student of the game. Whether he is working with a white belt on a technique, teaching a class, or drilling with Georges St-Pierre, he's constantly learning and developing and trying to find something new. He's just so open minded and looking for new possibilities and new techniques and new strategies. Not just with jiu-jitsu. He could be studying a new gymnastic move in which he thinks the hip movement will correlate to jiu-jitsu or a judo technique. It's really interesting how he brings the academic side of the sport over to the practical side of the sport. His dedication of how many hours he spends in the gym is above and beyond anyone else I know."
At 28 years old, the New Jersey native looked completely unaffected by any "jitters" inside the Octagon at UFC 140, which Cholish easily equates to his enigmatic mentor. "John's coached Georges St-Pierre in numerous title fights, so I had pretty much a full mental breakdown of what the week would entail from the Tuesday getting there all the way up until fight time," says Cholish, who scored a systematic second round TKO over Mitch Clarke. "He did a great job just reassuring me about everything I was going to walk through, so I wasn't at all surprised or nervous or anything. As far as it being the first fight of the night, the best part is you're the only one who is on time because you know exactly when you're going to start. It was just like another day training, except this time it was in the Octagon."
The finish of Clarke improves Cholish to an eight fight win streak with the past seven by stoppage. The sole loss on the former division I wrestler from Cornell University's record was in his first MMA fight, which Cholish took on a lark after training a year of BJJ at Renzo Gracie's Academy in Manhattan. Although that 2007 defeat on a baseball diamond in Fort Myers, Florida is technically a blemish on his professional record, it was the watershed moment for Cholish, as he fell in love with the sport while grinning through every punch he ate. Afterward, Cholish dedicated himself to learning each aspect of this new combat passion and has gone undefeated ever since, but Cholish is far from content at his current level of expertise.
"John and my father tend to harp on me about me being my toughest critic," reveals Cholish. "Before I even get back into the locker room, I'm talking to John like I did this wrong and this and that. I always try to pick myself apart and I sometimes get in trouble over-analyzing myself. At the end of the day, you have to say, 'did you get the result that you wanted?' And I did. I set a decent pace, I was able to kind of dictate where the fight went, and in the second round I picked it up. I felt like I was landing consistently on the feet and starting to get my rhythm. When we had that little flurry, I was able to secure a good transition and get to the back and finish the fight. You always have to get better from fight to fight because your opponents are going to be doing the same thing. Overall from my first fight in the UFC, I was definitely satisfied with the performance, but I'm definitely looking to improve upon it."
At UFC on FOX 3 in his home state, Cholish will get that desired step-up in competition with Danny "Last Call" Castillo. "He's got a real reputable name and fights out of a great camp," admits Cholish of his 13-4 opponent, who is a member of Urijah Faber's Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California. "I am excited about it. He has a great record fighting in the WEC and the UFC, so he's a great challenge for me. I'm definitely looking forward to the opportunity of testing my skills and abilities against him."
Besides the given that Castillo is a tough well-rounded fighter, which is noted by his wins over Dustin Poirier, Joe Stevenson, and, recently, Anthony Njokuani, Cholish likes to unconcern himself with his adversary and leave the tape watching to his coaches. "My main belief, I really enjoy training and I train so much, and when I'm just training for the love of it and having fun I improve a lot better as opposed to training with subtleties in the back of my mind of what my opponent does, because I'll focus on those areas a little more," explains Cholish, who benefited greatly from this practice in his Strikeforce win over Marc Stevens as Stevens, a righty, started their bout as a southpaw. "When you rely on what you see, you go in practicing that and studying for your whole fight camp, and you are going to be in a little bit of a deficit if you go out there and all of a sudden your opponent does something different. I try to be as good as I can in all the areas of the game, so no matter where the fight goes, I hopefully can dictate the pace or dictate where it goes."
In preparation for his second UFC outing, Cholish is busy criss-crossing New York City's first borough to train all the As in MMA. Outside of his work with the academic armbarrer from New Zealand in Danaher, Cholish's other two cornermen are his standup coach Joseph Samperi and BJJ black belt Erik Owings, the owner and operator of Mushin MMA in Union Square. Cholish can also be found at Church Street Boxing, doing gymnastics at Chelsea Piers, and learning the "Jantzen Ride" from friend and former NCAA Division I national wrestling champion from Harvard University Jesse Jantzen. As Cholish sharpens his weapons all over the Big Apple, they are all used accordingly by Danaher's guidance.
"When working with him, I put 100% all the trust in him, his abilities, his words, and what he does," affirms Cholish. "I have the confidence that when he tells me to do something, whether it sounds like it makes sense to me or not, I can 100% fully put my confidence into what he says. I can believe if I do what he says I will get a positive result. He's not out there with a huge camp, so I do feel very honored he takes the time to spend time with me and work with me. I definitely owe a lot of my successes to him."
If being a rising prospect in the shark infested waters of the UFC's lightweight division wasn't enough to spend his days on, Cholish maintains a full-time job as a Commodities Broker for an OTC Energy Brokerage Firm where he primarily focuses on brokering Natural Gas and Crude Oil options, futures, and swaps. Essentially what that means is that when Danaher references Pareto's Principle of economics in a grappling seminar, Cholish gets it. It also means that a couple of the suites at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey will be rocking with Cholish's white collar co-workers.
"They're nothing but supportive at work," states Cholish. "Of course, I need to not let my work slack, and my work comes first and I need to make sure everything goes well in the office. As far as the fighting goes, they love the sport and they're big fans of the UFC. Having that support and having that camaraderie in the office is definitely nice to have on my side. In all honesty, it's nice fighting in New Jersey because I won't have to take off as much time for work. When I have a fight, that's actually my vacation time. Most people wouldn't call that a vacation. It's nice that it's close by and I'll definitely have a lot of family and friends there to support me, which is definitely a plus. Being able to sleep in my own bed and train at my own facilities is obviously going to be a big benefit."
On May 5th, Cholish's mix of brains and brawn will collide with the California contender, Castillo. "I want to put on a strong performance and use everything I've learned in training and get a strong finish that's in a technically sound way and is hopefully aesthetically pleasing too," asserts Cholish, which in laymen's terms translates to another choke or knockout finish for a biased and bellowing Jersey crowd. "Obviously, fighting is a risky and dangerous sport, and getting into a cage with another guy takes a lot of guts, but at the end of the day, these people are here to watch a fight. That's what I plan on doing. I'm bringing a lot of fast paced action, using skill and technique to show how beautiful mixed martial arts can be."
Describing a stoppage win over Castillo as a pursuit of beauty, Cholish sounds exactly like the company Danaher would keep.
UFC Performance Institute
Dana White On The Opening Of UFC PI Mexico


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Rebecca A. Meehan, Ph.D., has joined the faculty of the School of Library and Information Science at Kent State University. Meehan will be an assistant professor of Health Informatics in the school's Information Architecture and Knowledge Management (IAKM) program.
[Rebecca Meehan] Meehan brings to the position an extensive background in research related to health care and health informatics, particularly focused on aging services technology and clinical analytics. Her interests center on optimizing health outcomes and the doctor-patient relationship by improving the user experience of health technology.
Since 2004 she has operated Meehan Group, LLC, providing consultation services in health informatics research, user experience and educational material with a focus on health care, long-term care and technology. Her previous experience also includes senior research roles with Intuit, Inc., in Highland Hills, Ohio, as well as Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Department of Sociology. She also has served as senior research scientist at Myers Research Institute of Menorah Park Center for Senior Living in Beachwood, Ohio, and senior research associate at Innovative Designs in Environments for an Aging Society (I.D.E.A.S., Inc.), in Kirtland, Ohio.
Meehan has co-authored articles in such publications as Medical Care, Alzheimer's Care Quarterly, The American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias and Sociological Focus, and presented at national and international conferences on matters related to aging, vision impairment, Alzheimer's, dementia, physician-patient communication and technology in health care. Her professional affiliations include Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) and North East Ohio Usability Professionals Association (NEOUPA).
Meehan holds a B.S. in biology from St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, Ind.; a master's in sociology from CWRU; and a Ph.D. in sociology, also from CWRU, with concentrations in medical sociology and gerontology.
The School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at Kent State University has the only American Library Association-accredited Master of Library and Information Science degree program in Ohio, offering courses in Kent, Columbus (State Library of Ohio) and through a fully online option. SLIS also offers a Master of Science in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management (IAKM) and participates in an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in the College of Communication and Information. The school is recognized by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation's top 20 LIS graduate programs, with a youth librarianship program that is ranked 13th. It is one of the largest library schools in the country, with more than 650 students enrolled. For more information, visit www.kent.edu/slis.
Media contact:
Flo Cunningham


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Sophie a.k.a. Miss KoolAid, asked if I'd be interested in doing a photo project with daily diptychs (two images that work together) together with her. This is our first diptych:
Team Diptych is all about Daily Photography
I said yes to this project because;
1) I've been wanting to take more everyday photos but I say no to myself because I don't do anything with my photos plus I always take "too many", now I have the reason I needed to just snap, snap, snap!
2) I love working with my photos in Photoshop, but I seldom take the time. And while sitting with Photoshop today, I've been playing with other photos too, using downloaded actions and adding text to some of my photos. I love this project, can you tell I'm excited?
3) there is something utterly fascinating with diptychs (and triptychs too). I think something amazing happens when you put two photos together, and it's even more amazing now that one of them is a surprise to me! Even when the photos aren't very similar they respond to each other and "talk", don't you think so? It's like they DO have something to say when they come together. I love that!
4) I like that in this project, for the first time, I'm taking photos with a word prompt that I need to ponder. I love how a word makes taking the photo not just an act but a thought, a plan, something to figure out before snapping! And I don't know about you, but when I take my camera out for one shot I just keep on going. Yesterday I took 41 photos, today 30! Though there are a lot of blurry ones that I'll delete later, one is "the chosen one" that I'm combining with Sophie's photo of the day.
5) I think a photo project collaboration with Sophie in Canada, who I haven't met and don't know in person (except through our ♥ blog communication) but consider a friend, could be really interesting as we're similar in many ways (we both have cats, we both did art cards last year etc) and photos is a nice way to get to know each other more!
I don't know about you but I'm SO exited about this!!
I thought it was amazing yesterday (the word was walking) that our photos were so similar in color and feeling, very wintery and each with a left foot in it! My brother said to me that they look the same except Sophie's photo is better because her foot is sharp and mine is blurry! Dough! I guess we took the same thought rout there? I love Sophie's photo, but personally I think mine is cool too, because the depth of the focus is about 1 centimeter (on the button of my coat) and out of focus both below and above that, but hey, I hate to point that out to ya bro!
Today is our second day of being Team Diptych, and the word is comfort. We've made a list of words together. Every other word I came up with and the list is 30 days long. My set of photos can be found in the folder The Diptych Project, please feel free to comment on our diptychs there!
Find a partner, make your own diptychs!
Time to dip your own feet!? Sophie found the inspiration for us at a new to me site called Art Slam where you can read about this project. Lucrecer is inviting you too do your own Daily Creative Project: The Team Diptych! I adore her because she (and Sophie who I also adore) has reminded me in the midst of dark Swedish winter how fun photography is (and can be even during dark winter days)! Also read the guide Photography Tips for Aspiring Photographers and then pick up your camera and have fun!
More diptych inspiration here, here, here and here!
PS: My blog has been down again because of server problems, I'm sorry about this, I've missed you too! Badly this time because I wanted to tell you how fun this project is. Visit Sophie of MissKoolAid too. Tomorrow's word is rainbows…


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Many seniors remember living much of their life with a feeling of optimism regarding the future, where humans and the societies they live in undergo continual improvement. Now, even the most optimistic among us contemplate future scenarios not thought possible till recently.
Green Senior Bob Lane has written some verses that put into words what many of us are feeling but for various reasons, do not wish to express. Bob is a retired professor who started the website "Gray is Green" and founded the National Senior Conservation Corps that now has 80 retirement homes involved in becoming more sustainable.
Bob was featured as a Green Senior Hero and his website is listed in the right column as a favorite link of Green Seniors.
In his poems, Bob explores the question of what happens if the effort to save our habitable planet fails. How do we deal with the prospect of our own species extinction, not as a distant possibility, but happening within a few generations? Happening because of what those of us alive today did or failed to do?
This subject is distressing. If it is too disturbing to you, the poem below may not be suitable reading. However, sometimes confronting our worst fears makes us more effective at doing what needs to be done. In that spirit, and with the permission of the author, here is one selection taken from Robert E. Lane's "If Conservation Fails: Explorations in Verse on Human Extinction."
Farewell to thought of living and to death.
To neither life nor death can we aspire.
Being, itself, has vanished with our breath.
No longer dark puts out the light – for both expire.
Mind lost its way when habitats were closed:
As drowning waters changed the coast's frontier,
And once-lush land by deserts are foreclosed,
And carbon gas corrupts the atmosphere.
All beauty is unseen from this time hence!
The poetry of Milton speaks to none.
The gift of books is not the gift of sense –
But food for termites who have overrun.
The world survives and follows up its plan.
But Homo Sapiens has joined the crew
Of evolved species that outlived their span.
So other species flourish where we grew.
We vanished with a whimpering, un-blest.
Who follows now the vagrant human quest?
We've written "Finis" to the Age of Man.


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Houston Texans 9 Foot Billiard Cloth
Show everyone who the ultimate fan is with the Houston Texans Billiard Cloth! This cloth is made in the USA and printed using high quality materials and dyes to ensure that the cloth is durable and vibrant. The fabric is 100% polyester making it easy to clean with a lint roller and provides consistent English. Team logos are placed in the middle of the table. Set includes cloth for bed and rails. Rack 'em up! Ships from Georgia. Allow 7 - 10 days for shipping.
NFL Official Licensed billiard cloth
Quality materials and dyes ensure that cloth is durable and vibrant
100% polyester for easy cleaning
Dyed and printed in team color and with team logo Set includes cloth for bed and rails Allow 7 - 10 days for shipping


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The company announced Monday that it would withdraw the JS Roundhouse Mid, made in collaboration with fashion designer Jeremy Scott.
The sneaker was supposed to be a reboot of a classic high-top sneaker with a strap across the middle. A preview was offered months ago and generated little chatter, but the company recently started promoting it on its Facebook page.
Adidas said it had received both positive and negative feedback and the company denied any suggestion that the design was linked to slavery.
Scott is known as one of fashion's more outrageous characters. Adidas said he is heralded for a style that is "quirky and lighthearted."


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Premises Liability, Audit Trail
Premises security liability is the application of principles in the tort of negligence. It arises when a business is sued by an individual who was the victim of a violent crime on the property of the business and is claiming that the lack of security was a factor in allowing the crime to occur.
A claim for inadequate security is a claim that the property owner failed to provide a reasonable level of security, given the risk of crime at the property during the time of the attack.
One of the largest jury verdicts ever awarded in a premises liability case involved poor key control.
A Texas property management company was ordered to pay $17 million to a woman who was assaulted on its property. The criminal broke into the management office, searched the files until he found a single woman with a good job, then stole her labeled key, entered her apartment and raped, beat and robbed her.
Poor record keeping is another major area of concern. The ability to track who took a key, for what purpose, when, for how long, and when it was returned is critical.
Manual sign-out sheets are notoriously sloppy. Forgotten or illegible entries will be construed by a good attorney as unreliable. Sloppy Key Release Log - Systematic record keeping is vital to proper key management.
If you find yourself the defendant in a liability case you need complete, accurate records of all key transactions. An audit trail.
HandyTrac provides a secure, archived audit trail.
Significant monetary judgements have been awarded against owners and management companies.
Awards were based on premises liability - where there was an "unforced entry" by a perpetrator who use a key to gain entry for criminal purposes.
HandyTrac Key Control reduces liability by prevent apartment keys from falling into the wrong hands and provides a secure Audit Trail


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NWAC Sponsorships: An opportunity to make an impact
The NWAC values its relationships with area businesses and takes pride in creating meaningful events to help promote businesses who partner with the NWAC. Whether a business wishes to support the NWAC through philanthropic support, or wants to increase their exposure to 36 different communities across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia the NWAC wants to serve our business partners as they see fit.
The NWAC has opportunities for businesses to reach a large and diverse audience while supporting student-athletes, and earning recognition in their respective communities.
There are many ways to partner with the NWAC. Currently, the NWAC hosts nine Championship tournaments throughout the year, along with the NWAC Hall-of-Fame Banquet, annual golf tournament, annual Commissioners meeting, several crossover tournaments, All-Star events, and Championship banquets coinciding with Championship tournaments. Working with the NWAC allows business to create exposure through sponsoring events, banquets, hospitality rooms, to name a few. The NWAC will work with your business to fit your needs.
Your business can be:
- A Title Sponsor for NWAC Events.
- Your business signage posted at all NWAC Events.
- Inclusion in all published NWAC materials and advertisements (printed and broadcasted).
- AD Space and recognition in Tournament programs.
- Acknowledgment of your business at all NWAC Championship events. If we are involved, so are you.
- Logo ID on all printed championship merchandise including t-shirts, special items, and program.
- Hole sponsorship at NWAC HOF golf tournament.
- Banner Ad on any or all pages of the www.nwacsports.org website.
- Table or stand space all of your championship events.
- Access to hospitality room.
- Presentation of donation/gift at half-time of championship event with Executive Director and members of your staff.
- Partner Sponsor:
- Opportunities to support the NWAC at specific tournaments of your choosing.
- Your business Signage posted at NWAC Events.
- Inclusion in published NWAC materials and advertisements.
- Logo ID on www.nwacsports.org website.
- Table or stand space at events
- A combination of Title sponsor benefits above.
- Event Sponsor (other ways to get involved):
- Opportunities to support the NWAC at specific tournaments of your choosing.
- Gifts-in-kind to specific tournaments/events of your choosing (food, materials) that help reduce operating expenses.
- Merchandise with your business logo at specific events.
- Hole sponsor during annual golf tournament.
- One-time donation to name a player of the week award for two-years: Ex: ACME Inc Baseball Player of the Week
Quick Facts:
- NWACSports.org website receives over 2.2 million visits annually and is the only source of information for parents, students, media, the community, and administrators about what is happening in the NWAC.
- NWAC serves over 3,000 student-athletes, many of whom work jobs while competing, and who will enter the workforce upon graduation.
- There are over 1,000 games per year in the NWAC.
- NWAC schools have an enrollment of over 250,000 students. When factoring in student body, administration, staff, faculty, and the community spread over 34 locations, NWAC reaches over a million people on an annual basis who do business in your locations.
- Many NWAC student-athletes are Northwest community members, supporters of area businesses, and will return to work and live in the Northwest.
- NWAC produces several collateral items and places advertising in printed materials which are distributed throughout all Community Colleges and Championship Events.
- NWAC Directory
- Championship Programs
- Press Guides
- Posters
- Hall of Fame Banquet Book
The NWAC is very interested in partnering with area-businesses to create long-lasting relationships. For more information about how the NWAC can help serve your business needs contact:
Alli Young
Director of Operations


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Public records, Town Council resolutions and ordinances, and other information can be requested by submitting the Records and Information Request Form to the Town Clerk's Office. Historical information is not available from the Town Clerk's Office. View the Records and Information Request Form.
Show All Answers
If you have sustained an injury or damage for which you believe the town or one of its employees is responsible, you may file a claim against the town.
The Town of Ashland lists the schedule of Town Council meetings, Planning Commission meetings, Economic Development Authority meetings, and Parks and Recreation Committee meetings on the Town Meetings web page. On this page, you may watch meetings in progress, read or download agendas of upcoming and past meetings, read or download minutes of past meetings, and download or watch recordings of past meetings.
The Contact information for each member of Town Council can be accessed by clicking on the following link: Town Council.
The application for Ashland boards, commissions, and committees can be accessed by clicking on the following link: Application.
At every Town Council meeting, Citizens are encouraged to discuss concerns or ideas unrelated to upcoming items on the agenda during "Citizen Input." If you would like to speak about a specific agenda item, every "Public Hearing" includes a time for citizen input. Town Council often opens the floor for citizen input during other portions of the meeting, as well.


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Mark McGwire, Ozzie Smith, Lou Brock. These famous Cardinals are known by baseball fans around the world. But who and what were the predecessors of these modern-day players and their team? In Before They Were Cardinals, Jon David Cash examines the infancy of major-league baseball in St. Louis during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. His in-depth analysis begins with an exploration of the factors that motivated civic leaders to form the city's first major-league ball club. Cash delves into the economic trade rivalry between Chicago and St. Louis and examines how St. Louis's attempt to compete with Chicago led to the formation of the St. Louis Brown Stockings in 1875. He then explains why, three years later, despite its initial success, St. Louis baseball quickly vanished from the big-league map.
St. Louis baseball was revived with the arrival of German immigrant saloon owner Chris Von der Ahe. Cash explains how Von der Ahe, originally only interested in concession rights, purchased a controlling interest in the Brown Stockings. His riveting account follows the team after Von der Ahe's purchase, from the formation of the American Association, to its merger in 1891 with the rival National League. He chronicles Von der Ahe's monetary downturn, and the club's decline as well, following the merger.
Before They Were Cardinals provides vivid portraits of the ball players and the participants involved in the baseball war between the National League and the American Association. Cash points out significant differences, such as Sunday games and beer sales, between the two Leagues. In addition, excerpts taken from Chicago and St. Louis newspapers make the on-field contests and off-field rivalries come alive. Cash concludes this lively historical narrative with an appendix that traces the issue of race in baseball during this period.
The excesses of modern-day baseball—players jumping contracts or holding out for more money, gambling on games, and drinking to excess; owners stealing players and breaking agreements—were all present in the nineteenth-century sport. Players were seen then, as they are now, as an embodiment of their community. This timely treatment of a fascinating period in St. Louis baseball history will appeal to both baseball aficionados and those who want to understand the history of baseball itself.


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AKRON, Ohio (AP) — Expected costs from proposed federal rules to make the nation's food system safer are causing concern among some farmers and state agriculture officials.
The proposals are part of the Food Safety Modernization Act approved in 2011, the Akron Beacon Journal reports. The legislation is among changes within the Food and Drug Administration aimed at making the nation's food system safer by pinpointing where contamination occurs. Officials are still determining how to implement the law, and regulations won't be finalized for several years. But one northeast Ohio farmer says he will no longer grow vegetables for local tables because the proposed requirements would cost too much.
Don Bessemer, who runs a farm within the city of Akron, says he has closed his Bessemer Farms market that sold to local retailers.
"We don't want to quit, we were forced out of the business," Bessemer said.
Bessemer says he has turned to soybeans because the law doesn't apply to commodity crops grown for uses like oil. The law focuses mostly on produce like lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, green onions and fruits that are usually eaten raw and often are at the center of nationwide recalls due to contamination.
Farmer Chris Saal says he will continue his Walnut Drive Gardens business in Portage County's Suffield Township. But he acknowledges that the expected costs are a concern for farmers.
Saal said he already has aggressive safety standards and hopes he won't have to make many changes.
Sereana Dresbach, deputy director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, says the rules are still proposals. The public can comment until at Sept. 16 and adopted rules likely won't begin until 2015 and would be phased in over several years.
Dresbach favors a safer U.S. food system, but says Ohio would have to double the agriculture department's food safety budget to enforce the rules as proposed.
"Sure it sounds good, but how do we pay for it?" Dresbach said.
Dresbach wants rules that are flexible enough to adjust for states that have good working practices and that give states the ability to grant local variances.
The proposed rules also may be a financial burden that some produce growers can't overcome, she said.
Farms likely will be required to hire an auditor to inspect their operations for about $5,000 per audit, with some farms possibly requiring several audits.
The FDA estimates the cost of implementing the rules will be about $4,700 a year for very small farms, $13,000 for small farms and $30,500 for large farms. Size is determined by a farm's annual business.
Farms selling less than $25,000 of produce annually and those selling directly to the public without going through a third party would be exempt. FDA estimates about 79 percent of all U.S. produce farms won't have to comply. The agency's figures show the rules are expected to save 1.7 million Americans from food-borne illness annually.
But Bessemer estimates the proposed requirements would cost him at least $100,000 to comply and another $30,000 a year for inspections. Farrners would have to maintain records on trucks transporting the produce and employees handling it, among other things.
But Doug Doohan, a professor of horticulture and crop science and leader of the fresh fruit and vegetable safety team at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, says many farms already submit voluntarily to audits or inspections required by companies buying their produce.
He says most audits probably would be prompted more by customers than by regulators, but he urges all farmers to take advantage of the public-comment period to voice their concerns.


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The European Central Bank needs to ease monetary policy further. Eurozone-wide inflation, at 0.8%, is below the target of "close to 2%, " and unemployment in most countries remains high. Under current conditions, it is hard for the periphery countries to reduce their costs to internationally competitive levels, as they need to do. If inflation in the eurozone as a whole is below 1%, the periphery countries are condemned to suffer painful deflation.
The question is how the ECB can ease policy, given that short-term interest rates are already close to zero. Most of the talk in Europe concerns proposals to undertake quantitative easing (QE), following the path taken by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan. This would mean expanding the money supply by buying member countries' government bonds – a realization of ECB President Mario Draghi's "outright monetary transactions" scheme, announced in August 2012 in the midst of growing uncertainty about the euro's future (but never used since then).
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But QE would present a problem for the ECB that the Fed and other central banks do not face. The eurozone has no centrally issued and traded Eurobond that the central bank could buy. (And the time to create such a bond has not yet come.) By purchasing bonds of member countries, the ECB would be taking implicit positions on their individual creditworthiness.
That idea is not popular with the eurozone's creditor countries. In Germany, ECB purchases of bonds issued by Greece and other periphery countries are widely thought to constitute monetary financing of profligate governments, in violation of the treaty under which the ECB was established. The German Constitutional Court believes that the OMT scheme exceeds the ECB's mandate, though it has temporarily tossed that political hot potato to the European Court of Justice.
The legal obstacle is not merely an inconvenience; it also represents a valid economic concern about the moral hazard that ECB bailouts present for members' fiscal policies in the long term. That moral hazard – a subsidy for fiscal irresponsibility – was among the origins of the Greek crisis in the first place.
Fortunately, interest rates on Greek and other periphery-country debt have fallen sharply over the last two years. Since he took the helm at the ECB, Draghi has brilliantly walked the fine line required to "do whatever it takes" to keep the eurozone intact. (After all, there would be little point in upholding pristine principles if doing so resulted in a breakup, and fiscal austerity alone was never going to return the periphery countries to sustainable debt paths.) At the moment, there is no need to support periphery-country bonds, especially if it would flirt with illegality.
What, then, should the ECB buy if it is to expand the monetary base? For several reasons, it should buy US treasury securities. In other words, it should go back to intervening in the foreign-exchange market.
For starters, there would be no legal obstacles. Operations in the foreign-exchange market are well within the ECB's remit. Moreover, they do not pose moral-hazard issues (unless one thinks of the long-term moral hazard that the "exorbitant privilege" of printing the world's international currency creates for US fiscal policy). Finally, ECB purchases of dollars would help push down the euro's exchange rate against the dollar.
Such foreign-exchange operations among G-7 central banks have fallen into disuse in recent years, partly owing to the theory that they do not affect exchange rates except when they change money supplies. But in this case we are talking about an ECB purchase of dollars that wouldchange the euro money supply. The increase in the supply of euros would naturally lower their price. Monetary expansion that depreciates the currency is more effective than monetary expansion that does not, especially when, as is the case now, there is very little scope for pushing short-term interest rates much lower.
Depreciation of the euro would be the best medicine for restoring international price competitiveness to the periphery countries and reviving their export sectors. Of course, they would devalue on their own had they not given up their currencies for the euro ten years before the crisis (and if it were not for their euro-denominated debt). If abandoning the euro is not the answer, depreciation by the entire eurozone is.
The euro's exchange rate has held up remarkably during the four years of crisis. Indeed, the currency appreciated further when the ECB declined to undertake any monetary stimulus at its March 6 meeting. Thus, the euro could afford to weaken substantially. Even Germans might warm up to easy money if it meant more exports.
Central banks should and do choose their monetary policies primarily to serve their own economies' interests. But proposals to coordinate policies internationally for mutual benefit are fair. Raghuram Rajan, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has recently called for the advanced economies' central banks to take emerging-market countries' interests into account via international cooperation.
ECB foreign-exchange intervention would fare well in this regard. This year, the emerging economies are worried about a tightening of global monetary policy, not the policy loosening that three years ago fueled talk of "currency wars." As the Fed tapers its purchases of long-term assets, including US treasury securities, it is a perfect time for the ECB to step in and buy some itself.
© Project Syndicate 1995–2014